Athene
by Frakme
Summary: The Enterprise crew come across a mysterious capsule containing an unknown woman, except she is very, very familiar. Unknown to the crew, they are being manipulated by a vastly superior intelligence. No pairings, set around Season 2.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Well this was just weird idea I had. So far there are 3 completed chapters and I'm working on a fourth. I'm still don't know quite how this is going to turn out but I am trying to avoid the obvious and it may still end up being utter bollocks. No pairings, though there might be some implied, I'll shall reign myself in!**

**Rating for possibly potty mouths.**

**Set in season 2.**

* * *

"Is it ready, First?"

"Yes, Second. Deploy the capsule now. You know the course to be set. It must cross the path of the Earth ship."

"Such primitive beings. I do not understand your interest in them."

"You do not need to, Second. They have much potential. Perhaps in a few millenia they may evolve to such as we."

"I do not see that as likely, First. And the test subject you chose seems rather flawed even compared to the rest of his species."

"You are referring to his genetic defects are you not? Yet his species do not considered him flawed; their genetic diversity is astounding. And their primitive science already strives to compensate for such flaws. I find that intriguing. Other species actively seek to wipe out such flaws. Yet Humans appear to allow them to flourish."

"It will ultimately be their downfall as they fail to strengthen themselves through evolution, First."

"Or it could it could drive them to continue their current rate of technological development."

"That certainly is an intriguing theory. By the way, why the gender reassignment?"

"Convenience really. There is a gender imbalance on the Earth ship. It also makes it more convenient to study the male/female dichotomy. I confess I find gendered species fascinating."

"Very well, First. Let's see how this plays out."

* * *

Trip looked at the woman lying on the biobed, fascinated.

"She could be your twin, Malcolm!" he said, though as yet he hadn't seen her eyes. But the resemblance to the British man was remarkable. They had found her drifting in an escape pod; an unknown alien design. Trip had examined it thoroughly and determined it couldn't have been drifting for more than a couple of weeks. The power cells were almost depleted; if the _Enterprise_ hadn't found it whilst doing a routine check of the long range sensors, the occupant would've been dead in a day.

Trip had the urge to touch the dark wavy hair, the exact shade of Malcolm's. His hand reached out and stroked a loose strand and he marvelled at the thick, soft texture. _Jus' like his_, Trip thought.

_He entered sickbay, the lights dim as it was late at night. Phlox noticed his entrance._

"_Lieutenant Reed is sleeping, Commander," he said._

"_I thought he might, I jus' n- want to see him. He's gonna be okay, isn't he, Doc?"_

"_Yes he will be, Commander," said Phlox, his voice tinged with compassion. "The wound in his leg is healing nicely, thanks to my osmotic eel."_

"_Thanks, Doc. I won't stay long."  
_

_The doctor nodded._

"_See that you don't, you need your sleep as well, Commander!" The doctor bustled away, to Trip's relief and he walked slowly up to the biobed where Reed lay sleeping, the blankets up to his chest, one slender pale hand resting on top, the other by his side. An IV line snaked from the inside of his elbow just above that hand. Trip reached over and lightly stroked the dark hair, brushing back a stray curl. _

_Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away._

"_Don't scare me like that again, Lieutenant," he whispered. _

He looked up to see the armoury officer giving him a strange look and immediately snatched his hand away.

"Apparently she is, Commander," Malcolm replied. "Phlox ran a DNA scan… apart from the being a XX instead of an XY, she is genetically identical to me."

"So completely human?"

"Yes… quite a mystery. Although we know one thing, she wasn't born as a Human, she has no navel"

"Does the doc think she could've been cloned?"

"That does seem like a possibility… though I'm wondering how the hell whoever did this got hold of my genetic material!"

"It does seem like we have a mystery on our hands!" The captain spoke as he came to stand next to the armoury officer, though he looked searchingly at Trip. The engineer avoided his gaze, instead looked down at the woman.

"Did T'Pol turn anything up on the database?" Trip asked.

"Nothing." The captain sounded frustrated. "She's running some more analysis on the escape pod… assuming that's what it is. She did say that it the escape pod is made mainly from an unknown metallosilicate polymer. It's incredibly complex, she says certainly beyond our technology and possibly beyond Vulcan's."

"It seems incredibly coincidental for this woman to have my DNA," said Malcolm. "I strongly suggest we keep her sedated. Who knows what kind of threat she presents to the ship?"

"Are you serious, Lieutenant?" said Trip. "She's a lone Human female! She was naked, she had nothing on her, certainly no weapons. Phlox scanned her thoroughly, she ain't carrying any foreign microbes or diseases, he's had to administer a full set of vaccinations 'cause she's in more danger from us!"

"Appearances can be deceiving, Commander," replied the armoury chief archly. "Not everything can be taken at face value. You of all people should know that."

"Perhaps we all need to reserve some judgement," interjected the captain, wanting to head off another argument between his chief engineer and his chief tactical officer.

"I'm gonna give T'Pol a hand," Trip said. "Okay, Cap'n?"

"Okay, Trip," said Archer, a little relieved. "I'll come down shortly."

Trip walked out of sickbay quickly, eager to get away from the British man. What the hell had he meant by his last comment? Unless he was referring to the seemingly innocent game he'd played with the Xyrillian engineer that resulted in him becoming pregnant. Or how he'd been fooled by a ship full of holograms.

He shook his head, trying to get the annoying yet enigmatic British man off his mind. He'd been determined to break down the barriers the armoury officer had put up between himself and his fellow crewmates, sensing the younger man's loneliness, affected by the sadness he'd seen when they were stranded in a freezing cold, airless shuttlepod. He'd succeeded, since then they had been closer but occasionally he'd been frustrated by Malcolm pulling back into his perfect, military façade.

He found T'Pol in the largest research lab, busy scanning the capsule.

"Commander," she said, acknowledging his presence. "Would you like to take a look at the latest data I have acquired?"

"Sure, T'Pol. You shed any more light on the origins of this thing?"

"Unfortunately not. I have determined it is controlled by biomechanical circuitry and as near as I can determine, every component is grown."

Trip let out a low whistle. They couldn't possibly hope to duplicate anything like that.

"Have you passed the material data down to the chem lab?"

"I have," T'Pol said, nodding. "Crewman Ichiro is a specialist in metallurgy and material science so I have requested his assistance in examining the structure of the pod. I believe the material to have some intriguing properties."

"Good thinking," said Trip absently, as he ran his hand along the pod. It was smooth, frictionless to the point where he could barely feel it under his hand. It was a strange, metallic pinkish purple colour, probably to do with the presence of vanadium and manganese in the polymeric material the pod was made from. He looked inside the open hatch, to where the woman had been lying on an odd kind of spongy material that T'Pol had said was also organic.

The captain then entered the lab and T'Pol moved over to summarise her findings for him. Trip only half listened, his mind still on the woman lying in sickbay. He remembered the feeling of shock when he'd opened the hatch, he'd almost thought at first it was Malcolm lying there, until the sliding hatch revealed the body was most definitely female.

"Trip!"

The engineer started suddenly aware that the captain had been trying to get his attention. He looked around to see T'Pol had left, presumably to go to the chemistry lab. The captain was looking at him with concern.

"Are you alright, Trip?"

Trip forced a smile.

"Jus' peachy, Cap'n!"

"Trip, is everything okay between you and Malcolm? You're not fighting over power requirements again are you?"

"Everything's fine, we're not fighting. I think I've managed to convince him of my way of thinkin'!"

The captain let out a snort.

"I doubt that; I suspect he's biding his time!" He looked seriously at his best friend. "Trip, if there's something bothering you, you know you can talk to me?"

"I know, Cap'n and thanks, but really I'm fine! Anyway, I think T'Pol and I have done all we can. We've turned the data over to her department, maybe one of the specialists will come up with something. Travis is looking over the navigational data, seein' if we can extrapolate a point of origin."

"Phlox to Archer," the comm sounded and the captain immediately turned to the comm panel, flicking the 'open channel' switch.

"Archer here, has your patient woken up?"

"Indeed she has, Captain."

"We're on our way, Archer out." He thumbed the comm off and he and Trip made their way to the turbolift.

In sickbay, Trip tried to hide his dismay when he saw the woman had been restrained. She was fighting against the restraints, raw panic in her dark grey-blue eyes. Phlox was looking down at her, as was Liz Cutler, both trying to calm her. Malcolm was still there, though Trip noticed he was he had moved so he was not in the woman's line of sight. He felt a surge of irritation when he realised that it was likely him who ordered the restraints. The captain had obviously come to the same conclusion as he directed a sharp glance at the British man.

The captain moved over to the woman, smiling his most genial smile.

"Easy there, Miss," he said, soothingly. "We're not going to hurt you, we're here to help you. Phlox, can you ease off the restraints?"

"Captain!" Malcolm protested then clammed up when he was faced with another sharp green gaze.

"Lieutenant," said the captain in an conciliatory fashion, "I'm sure she doesn't pose a threat to all of us."

Malcolm nodded but Trip noticed his hand drift slightly to the phase pistol he was wearing.

Phlox removed the restraints and the woman calmed down.

"Who are you?" she said, in a voice accented like Malcolm's but with a more feminine lilt, "Where am I?"

"My name is Captain Jonathan Archer and you are on the Earth ship _Enterprise_. We rescued you from your pod, your life support was about to fail. We don't mean you any harm. Can you tell me your name?"

"My name? My name is-" she stopped, distressed. "I can't remember!"

"What do you remember? Do you know where you are from?"

"Earth," she said. "You said this was an Earth ship?"

"That's right," the captain said encouragingly, "Is that where you're from?"

"I think so," she replied, though she sounded uncertain. "At least that's the impression I have. I can't remember much. All I can remember is being in a white room, then waking up here."

"Amnesia?" asked the captain, directing the question at Phlox.

"Perhaps, but I am not certain. I may have to run more tests. The ones I have done so far haven't shown anything that would be consistent with memory loss of this degree. She appears to be in good health, apart from a few allergies." Phlox glanced at the Armoury chief, who stood woodenly at the back of the room.

"We need to call you something," said Archer thoughtfully. "Does a name come to mind?"

The woman frowned and Trip was struck again by her resemblance to Malcolm.

"Athene?" he suggested. "How does that suit ya?" Turning to the captain he explained. "Athene was a Greek goddess who sprung full grown from Zeus's head." He noticed Malcolm's look of surprise. "What, can't a Southern hick have an interest in Greek mythology?"

"Athene," she repeated, rolling it around in her mouth. She gave him a small smile and he felt his stomach twist into a knot. "I rather like it, though it doesn't feel like my name."

"Athene it is then," said the captain.

"Captain, I think Athene needs to rest now," said Phlox. "Perhaps you could talk to her again in the morning?"

"If you say so, Doctor. Trip, Malcolm, let's get out of the doctor's way."

They all turned to leave, so it was only Liz who noticed the way Athene tensed at the mention of Malcolm's name.

When the others had gone, she turned to the woman.

"Are you hungry?" she said. "I can get you something to eat?"

"Yes, please," Athene said, politely. "I'm rather famished!"

"Is there anything in particular that you'd like?"

"I don't mind, whatever's convenient. "

Liz nodded, smiling.

"I'll get something sent up from the galley."

She moved over to the comm and called the galley. Five minutes later a steward came up with a tray containing roast chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots, a glass of pineapple juice and a portion of fruit salad.

Liz watched as Athene tucked into her food, eating neatly and without any comment. She did note that she seem to really enjoy the pineapple juice.

Once she cleared the tray, Liz then tactfully directed her to the facilities. When she emerged, she directed her back onto the biobed.

"You need to sleep now," she said. "Would you like something to help you?"

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same," replied Athene. "My mind's fuzzy enough without the aid of drugs!".

Liz dimmed the lights around the bed and sat by her until she fell asleep. She then went to find Phlox.

"She's asleep now," said Liz. "Are we going to keep her in sickbay?"

Phlox hesitated.

"She is perfectly healthy but I will need to consult the captain. Lieutenant Reed still thinks she presents a danger to the ship. He has posted a guard outside of sickbay, since I refused to allow him to post one inside."

The normally genial Denobulan sounded rather peeved.

"It is all a bit odd, Doctor," she said. "For one thing, she speaks perfectly good English!"

"It is indeed a puzzle, Crewman," he replied. "I'll speak to the captain to see how he wishes to proceed."

* * *

In the captain's ready room, the captain, T'Pol, Trip and Malcolm were involved in an intense discussion. Trip noticed Malcolm was wound up even tighter than usual, the tension visible in his lithe frame. The engineer worried about him, he was clearly badly affected the discovery of his female 'twin'. Trip had the impression that man was barely holding it together, that his current façade would shatter.

"If we really think she's a threat, Cap'n," said Trip, trying to appease the British man, "Do we need to put her guard?"

Mal nodded once, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"I'm not convinced she is, Trip," said the captain. "I'm sure we can arrange some quarters for her and post a guard if necessary."

"The lieutenant is most likely correct in his precautions, " volunteered T'Pol. "We do not have sufficient information with regards to her origins to determine whether she is a threat or not."

"Lieutenant, tomorrow morning, arrange quarters for her and post a guard. I'm sure Phlox will want to keep her in sickbay overnight. I'll come and talk to her once she's settled."

"Yes, Captain." He spun around on his heel and left. T'Pol exited after him.

"He's taking this pretty badly," commented the captain.

"D'you think!" said the engineer, flopping down in the spare seat. "He's completely freaked out… I guess I can't really blame him."

"I guess you're right Trip. Some unknown being has cloned a female duplicate of our armoury officer and we've no idea how or why or who!"

"Cap'n,if we could find out the answer to just one of those questions, I'd expect we'd get an answer to the other two."


	2. Chapter 2

"They picked it up then, just in time, First!"

"Yes, exactly as we planned, Second."

"We've already received the first telemetry from the probe. I've also accessed the data the Humans have acquired on the delivery system. Their analysis methods are quite crude but typical for their stage of development."

"Excellent, I shall take a look. I was interested in the reaction of the test subject to the probe; fear, anger and suspicion. It confirmed your suspicions that they are a highly emotional species, though not as much as Vulcans."

"They do not attempt to control them as Vulcans do, First. Vulcans are further along in their evolution than Humans."

"But one day the Humans will surpass them, I think. We shall wait and see."

"I shall record that conjecture and remind you of it when the time comes! I cannot see it happening."

"I'm most intrigued by the reaction of one the other Humans, the one designated 'Tucker'. I'm hopeful that we will get some meaningful data from his interaction with the probe."

* * *

The next morning, Phlox discharged Athene to the quarters assigned to her, before asking Captain Archer to join him in sickbay.

"Captain, as far as I can tell, I don't believe she has suffered any memory loss," said Phlox, showing the scans he had run of Athene. "I believe she is a construct, cloned from Lieutenant Reed's DNA and then 'programmed' with knowledge that would allow her to communicate with us. I also believe that she was grown in a very short time period; perhaps in a matter of weeks. Commander Tucker's naming suggestion is more appropriate than we thought!"

"Really, Phlox," said the captain, astonished. "That's incredible!"

"Indeed! As you have seen, she speaks English and according to Ensign Sato and Subcommander T'Pol, she has the educational knowledge equivalent to that of Lieutenant Reed's, with a heavy emphasis on maths and science. Like him, she is also fluent in French, she has a virtually identical IQ and she even tests with the same score on a Myers-Biggs personality type indicator, obviously adjusted for her gender."

"Does she have any memories of Lieutenant Reed's life?" asked the captain, curiously.

"No she doesn't. She thinks she is from Earth but she can't explain how she knows this. She has no memories of family, childhood, friends or anything else!"

"Thank you, Doctor. Has she settled into her quarters?"

"Yes, she has. Crewman Cutler has taken charge of her. She has arranged for some clothing for her as well. She is under twenty four hour guard as well."

"I'll go and see her, ask her some questions. She must know something!"

"You can certainly ask, Captain, but I very much doubt you will get much useful information from her! Subcommander T'Pol snd Ensign Sato were quite thorough in their questioning."

The captain shook his head.

"You probably be right, but it can't hurt to ask her."

* * *

"How are you getting on with the course extrapolations, Ensign?"

Travis looked up from where he was engrossed in the navigational display on the situation room table.

"I've narrowed it down to one possible star system, Lieutenant," he said, addressing Malcolm who was standing next to him, arms crossed. "The subcommander suggested I try to cross reference possible points of origin to where the _Enterprise_ has been. Particularly where you've been off the ship."

Malcolm nodded.

"Yes, that would make sense," he said. "I've been racking my brains and I can't recall anything unusual happening to me on recent away missions!"

"Considering the advanced science required to make both the pod and the clone," said T'Pol, as she joined them. "It is not beyond the realms of probability that whoever took your DNA also covered up the act."

"That's great," scowled Malcolm. "So not only has my DNA been stolen, but I've probably had my mind tampered with as well!"

"It is simply conjecture at this time, Lieutenant," replied the Vulcan woman. "We need to gather more evidence."

Malcolm simply shook his head.

"So what have you found?"

"I think there's a possibility it could've originated in the Omicron Cephei system," he said. "Subcommander, could you check over my figures before I report to the captain?"

"Certainly, Ensign." T'Pol leaned over the table and looked carefully through what Travis had done.

"You have been extremely thorough, Ensign," she said, approvingly. "I'll inform the captain."

* * *

"I hope you are finding your quarters comfortable," the captain said.

"Lovely, thank you, Captain. You've been most kind… considering the circumstances." She gave him a small smile. "Is there anything else you wish to ask me?"

"You mentioned in sickbay about a white room?"

The smile disappeared, replaced with a faint frown, her dark eyebrows knitting together.

"I think I was in it before I was in the pod, I suppose," she mused. "It was a small room, with a bed and a chair."

"Do you recall anyone else in the room?"

Athene hesitated before answering.

"I don't think so but I can't be sure. I'm sorry, Captain, I simply don't recall anything else!" He could hear the frustration in her voice. She got up from where she'd been sat on the bed and started pacing the room.

"I hope you can understand why we're being cautious. You're free to move about the ship but you will be accompanied at all times by a security officer."

"I understand, Captain. What is going to happen to me? Presumably, I can't stay on your ship."

He looked at the woman, who looked at him calmly, not really giving an indication of what she was truly thinking.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm waiting to hear back from my superiors."

"Thank you, Captain. I'm sorry to be such a bother." She sat back down, folding her hands into her lap. Once more he was struck at how much like Malcolm she was.

"I'll keep you posted, Athene. Crewman Miller is outside, please ask her if there is anything you need."

"I will, Captain."

He let himself out and made his way to the Bridge.

* * *

Malcolm froze slightly as he entered the mess to have his lunch. _She_ was there, sat at a table with Crewman Miller, the guard assigned to her and Ensign Sato. The communications officer waved at him and he nodded briefly back at him before selecting his lunch. When he filled his tray he looked for a table.

"Spare seat here, Lieutenant!" said Hoshi cheerfully.

"Thank you, but I'd rather not, Ensign." He tried to ignore Hoshi's hurt, puzzled look. He was fond of the young Japanese woman, perhaps a little too fond considering she was a junior officer but he didn't think he could sit comfortably at a table with the clone on it. Frankly, she gave him the creeps.

The ship was currently on its way to the Omega Cephei system; three weeks before, the _Enterprise_ had carried out a planetary survey on the uninhabited system. One of the planets was Minshara class, though being nearly a billion years younger than Earth's solar system, there was not much in the way of complex life forms.

Reed had gotten permission from the captain to take some of his security contingent to the planet to carry out some training exercises, playing a rather aggressive version of 'Capture the Flag'. There were several points when Reed had been separated from the rest of his team, though T'Pol had keep a sensor lock on the biosigns on all team members on the planet, it was not inconceivable that Malcolm could've had his DNA stolen while he was alone.

He picked at his lunch, ignoring the three women near by. A Floridian drawl alerted him to Commander Tucker's presence. His own tray loaded, the chief engineer sat himself at Malcolm's table though, Malcolm thought sourly, he sat so he could watch the clone and her companions.

"You okay, Malcolm?" Trip said, looking at the dark haired man in concern.

"I'm fine," he said automatically. Trip let out a snort.

"Sure you are," he drawled. "You said that after you'd been shot and after you'd been skewered by a Romulan mine!"

"That was different," snapped Malcolm. He heaved an irritated sigh, as he looked at his companion, whose cerulean blue eyes kept drifting over to the other table. He found it disturbing the way Trip was eyeing up the clone.

"I'm just not convinced that she doesn't present a danger to the ship," he said. "Even if she herself is benign, it's the sort of technology she could be representing that I'm concerned about."

The three women got up from their table and cleared away their trays, having finished their meals. The two men watched as Hoshi took her leave of Miller and her charge, to resume her duty shift. Hoshi flashed a smile at the two men as she turned to leave and Malcolm waved back. He felt another surge of irritation as he saw Trip's eyes firmly fixed to the clone.

"Commander," he hissed. "Trip!"

"What?" Trip looked back at him in confusion.

"Are you attracted to her?" he blurted out.

"What? No!" Trip stared at him, his mouth agape.

"Then why is it you can't take your eyes off of her?"

"C'mon, you gotta admit, she's fascinatin'. She's you, only female!"

"Thank you for reminding me, Commander," replied Malcolm, tightly. Trip shot him a look of sympathy.

"Jeez, Malcolm, I'm sorry. Look I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this." He stood up and clapped Malcolm on the shoulder. "Better get back to work." He picked up his tray and took it to the disposal unit. Malcolm followed him, shaking his head. He probably didn't want to think that his friend fancied a female equivalent of him. What would it suggest about how Trip felt about him? He almost laughed aloud at the thought. Trip Tucker, was most definitely as straight as he was. They were friends, close friends, bonded through adversity.

_"What are you going to do? Shoot me?" Trip glared down at the lieutenant from the ladder, before continuing his ascent. Trip opened the hatch and with shaking hands. Malcolm aimed the phase pistol. But his hands were so cold, he couldn't feel his fingers, couldn't press the firing mechanism and he watched helplessly as Trip disappeared and shut the hatch. He heard the outer hatch open._

_"NOOOOOOOOOO!"_

_He sat up abruptly, shaking, realising he was in his quarters, the blankets strewn on the floor where he'd tossed them. _Trip!_ he thought. Still in the grips of the terrifying dream he got out of bed and stumbled to the door, adrenaline pumping as he ran down the corridors to Trip's quarters. It took him a couple of attempts with trembling fingers to use his security override to open the door. He fell in as soon as it opened, then stopped, as he saw on the bunk a heap of blankets, with tousled blond hair peeking out._

_He convulsively grab the edge of the blanket, pulling it away from the sleeping engineer, seeing that he was, like Malcolm, sleeping in sweatpants and t-shirt. The loss of the blankets roused Trip, who looked up blearily at the other man._

_"Malcolm," he slurred. "'m cold,... so cold."_

_Without waiting for a further invitation, he slipped into the bunk, allowing Trip to gather him in his arms. He rested his head against Trip's chest, reassured by the other man's heartbeat that he was still alive._

_Slowly but surely the trembling stopped._

_"Thought you were dead, Trip," he said._

_"I'm alive, Malcolm and so are you. Jus' so damn cold."_

_They held each other tightly as they fell asleep._

_Malcolm woke up before Trip, uncomfortably hot, sweaty and still in the other man's embrace. Gently, he extricated himself, without waking him and crept out of the room. Neither man made another mention of that night and Malcolm wasn't even certain Trip remembered it. At least the nightmares stopped. Yet he still remembered with longing the warm feeling he'd felt waking up in someone's arms, even if the someone was a highly irritating, yet endearing, Chief Engineer._

On the bridge, the captain and T'Pol were reviewing the additional data the science department had acquired on the pod. Ensign Le Verrier had found an unusual theta radiation signature, which the captain hoped they could use to trace the origin of the pod. T'Pol had her team reviewing all the scans they had taken from the Omicron Cephei system to see if they could find the same signature there, but so far they hadn't. Then again, it was not specifically a type of radiation they would look for.

The whole situation was a mystery and Captain Archer was determined to get to the bottom of it. He also didn't believe in coincidences; the _Enterprise_ was meant to intercept that pod. He was beginning to wonder if the timing of the interception was also pre planned. He spoke his thoughts out loud to T'Pol.

"I find myself in agreement with you, Captain," she said. "However we should try to avoid speculation on the motivations of Athene's creators at this time."

"Keep an open mind?" said Jon with a wry smile. "I'm hoping that their motives are benign, though I guess our Armoury Chief is rubbing off on me as I am feeling a little suspicious. For example, why Malcolm?"

"It could simply be he was the most accessible subject at the time," said T'Pol. "Or he has particular characteristics that these beings were looking for."

"Still, the technology involved is mind boggling. We've had cloning on Earth for the past one hundred and fifty years, but nothing like this."

"I am sure you are familiar with Arthur C Clarke's three laws, the third of which states 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'."

He smiled at her.

"Of course, but I'm surprised that you would be!"

"I have read extensively of your literary genre you call 'science fiction'. I find it very enlightening."

"Perhaps I should talk to Trip about showing more science fiction movies then," Jon teased the Vulcan, smiling when she raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps," said T'Pol and Jon was pleased to see a twinkle in her eye. _Perhaps a little more arm twisting is required_, he thought.

He walked over to the rear of the bridge and leaned on the handrail.

"How long before we reach Omicron Cephei, Travis?"

"Another fifteen hours, Captain."

"Thanks, Ensign."

"I've been running full sensor sweeps, Captain," volunteered Reed. "Nothing of significant interest. I've been scanning for that radiation signature but so far I haven't found anything even resembling it."

"Thanks, Malcolm. We'll just have to keep checking."

Jon sat in his seat, staring at the streaking stars, wondering what they would find when they arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Sorry had to repost chapter two, noticed an error in it with Athene's name. Thanks for the reviews so far! I have made a start on chapter 4, hopefully I will get that one up before the end of tomorrow. **

"So they are coming here."

"So it appears, Second. I must admit, they have exceeded my expectations, I did not expect them to extrapolate so accurately and so quickly. I fear we have underestimated their ingenuity and intuition."

"Are we ready for the next stage?"

"Yes, of course we are. This doesn't change anything although it may end the game rather sooner than we anticipated."

"I'm sure we can find some way to extend our entertainments, First."

"We may have to alter a couple of subroutines in the probe, but I already have a few ideas on that score, Second."

* * *

Captain Archer invited Athene to dine with him and T'Pol that evening. She was a guest on board ship and until he received a final decision from command, who were currently hotly debating what to do, he would treat her as such. He'd firmly told Crewman Benz, Athene's latest security detail that her presence wasn't required until after the meal was completed.

Chef had, as usual, presented a sumptuous repast; pumpkin curry with chickpeas and basmati rice, chapatis and mango chutney, followed by a refreshing lemon sorbet. Chef had been experimenting with a few more vegan dishes at the captain's request, mindful of T'Pol's discomfort at witnessing him and Trip consuming meat. He was pleased to see both T'Pol and Athene enjoying their meals, especially as T'Pol, unusually for her, stayed to eat dessert.

The conversation centred around how Athene had been occupying her time.

"Serena… Crewman Miller, has been most kind. She took me on a tour around the ship, showing me the research labs, the mess hall, the gymnasium and the hydroponics lab. Unfortunately we ended up in sickbay as I developed an allergic reaction to some of the pollen in the hydroponics lab."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Athene," said the Captain.

"It's quite alright, poor Serena was mortified! It was just a few sneezes and Doctor Phlox was able to relieve the symptoms quite quickly. Afterwards we went back to my quarters and she showed me how to access your media database. She was kind enough to find me some public domain material about your ship and its mission. I understand that your father developed the engine that was the prototype for _Enterprise_'s engine?"

Jon smiled proudly.

"That's correct," he said and immediately launched into an explanation, talking about his father's work. Athene listened with a look of polite interest on her face. T'Pol merely concentrated on her meal.

Jon was suddenly struck by a memory of breakfast with Lieutenant Reed, which had been rather painful. Trying to draw the younger man out had been like getting blood out of a stone and it struck him as he was busy monologuing, that Athene had the same knack of avoiding talking by asking about something that the Captain was happy to talk about, with no need from input from her.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable about dominating the conversation, he wrapped it up and turned his attention to his guest.

"What do you intend to do with the rest of your day, Athene?" he asked.

"Crewman Benz says that tonight is 'movie night'? She has kindly offered to take me along with her. I hope that is alright with you, Captain?" she looked at him anxiously.

"Of course, I think the movie tonight is an old classic, 'The Bridge Over the River Kwai.' Is that right T'Pol?"

"I do not know, you would have to consult with Commander Tucker." she replied. Jon wondered briefly if it would be too late to change the selection to '2001: A Space Odyssey', before dismissing the fanciful notion. He did make a mental note to ask for it to be shown the near future.

"I'm sure it will be very entertaining," said Athene. "Will Lieutenant Reed be there?"

"I expect so, if I'm right about the movie. I believe it's one that would appeal to him."

Athene looked down, suddenly clamming up.

"Is something wrong, Athene?" Archer asked, concerned.

"I'm fine, Captain," she said. She pushed her dessert dish away after placing her napkin neatly by the side of the plate. "May I be excused?"

Jon looked at her in concern.

"Of course," he said. "I hope to see you at the movie, later?"

Jon escorted outside, beckoning Lydia Benz over from where she was sat, writing on a PADD. The crewman smiled and acknowledged the captain, before taking her charge out of the mess. The captain went back into his mess, where the steward was clearing the plates, before putting out glasses of ice tea.

"What do you think that was all about, T'Pol?" asked Jon, before taking a swig from his glass.

"Lieutenant Reed appears to be very uncomfortable around the clone," she said. "It is logical to assume she feels just as uncomfortable as he does."

"You're probably right. I just hope we'll find some answers about her origin tomorrow. Starfleet Command have made it clear they won't make a decision about her until we find something out!"

* * *

As Athene and Crewman Benz walked down the corridor to the turbolift, they met Commander Tucker, who smiled at them both.

"You're coming to Movie Night aren't you?"

"Yes, sir" said the crewman as at the same time, Athene said "No, sir."

Trip looked at them in puzzlement.

"Do you not want to go now, Athene?" asked Lydia, equally puzzled. "I really think you'll enjoy it and it'll give you a chance to meet some more of the crew."

"I don't know, I think that some people would rather I wasn't there," she said.

Trip frowned.

"You talking about Malcolm? I'll speak to him. I guess I can understand, but it's no use blaming you! Come anyway, I'll look after you. I'll even share my popcorn!" Trip smiled at her disarmingly and was rewarded with a shy smile in return.

"Alright, Commander," she said. "I'll come."

"Great, I'll swing by and pick you up before the film starts, at 1945. You coming too, Crewman?"

"I've got orders to stay with Athene everywhere, sir. So yes I will be."

Trip rolled his eyes but didn't comment. As he walked off he probably thought it was best they had a chaperone. He wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea!

A couple of minutes after 1945, Trip was pressing the door chime of the guest quarters on G deck. The door immediately opened and he was faced with Lydia, still in uniform as she was on duty and Athene, who was still wearing the plain black trousers and a royal blue v necked tunic she was wearing earlier. He had to admit, the colour looked good on her, making her eyes look very blue. He himself was wearing pair of stone slacks and one of his Hawaiian shirts, a lime green one with pink flamingos. He was beginning to wish he'd worn something else as he noticed Athene eyeing it with some distaste.

"Is that typical off duty attire on this ship, Commander?" she asked.

"Err, no, just me," he said, now definitely regretting his choice of shirt. "And call me Trip."

She smiled that small smile of hers. He thought it reminded him of the smile Malcolm always wore after engineering a satisfactory weapons test.

"Shall we go,Trip?"

He gallantly offered his arm and she placed an elegant, long fingered hand in the crook of his elbow, Lydia following with a smirk on her face. The mess hall was half full when they arrived, but they managed to find three seats together in the middle. Trip snagged some popcorn on the way past.

He looked around the room and saw Malcolm with Travis and Hoshi at the front. He saw Malcolm look back and scan the room, then register Trip's arrival. He scowled when he saw Athene and Trip bristled. He'd sent a message to the Lieutenant to tell him that Athene would be coming to movie night but he hadn't had a reply, which bothered him. He'd intended to find him but then there'd been a problem in engineering that had required his attention and there had barely been enough time for him to shower and change before picking Athene up.

He saw Malcolm turn back around as the movie started and offered the two women some of his popcorn.

He didn't pay particular attention to the film but he did notice that Athene seemed completely engrossed in it. When it had finished, she started asking questions about the war the film had been set in, astonished when it was revealed that it was based on a true story.

Trip looked at her apologetically.

"I'm afraid I ain't much of a history buff," he said. "But I know who is!" He immediately launched through the crowd of people who were busy straightening the mess hall, to catch Malcolm before he had a chance to leave.

"Hey, Lieutenant," he said. "I'm in need of your assistance!"

"What is it, Commander," Malcolm replied, guardedly. He tensed as Trip steered him into the corner of the room and saw the grim look on Trip's face.

"Look, I realise that Athene's presence is a problem for you, but can you at least try to be nice? It's not her fault she is who she is! Anyway, seems she has an interest in learning more about World War Two and I guess you're the best person to educate her. Maybe if the two o' you could find some common ground, you might make things a little more comfortable 'round here!"

Malcolm folded his arms and looked stubborn.

"Are you making that an order, sir?" he said through gritted teeth.

"I can if you want me to, Lieutenant!"

Malcolm sighed, helpless in the face of Trip's determination to be a do-gooder.

"Fine, I'll talk to her. Fill in the gaps in her knowledge. Perhaps it will be a refreshing change to speak to someone at the same intellectual level as me." Trip winced at the acidly delivered insult.

"Yeah, 'cause my honorary doctorate from MIT ain't the same as your Master's from Oxford," Trip snapped. Malcolm had the grace to look abashed.

"I'm sorry, Commander, that was uncalled for."

"S'alright, I guess we're all a little on edge," Trip conceded, not wanting to be distracted by a fight with his friend when he'd manage to convince to make an overture to his clone. "C'mon, she's waiting!"

Once the Mess Hall had been set up in its usual arrangements, Trip, Malcolm and Athene sat down and Malcolm, began lecturing Athene on various aspects of World War II. Lydia excused herself, with her boss's permission, to attend to a task in the armoury.

Trip watched in amusement, secretly delighted to see Malcolm relaxed and open. Athene seemed genuinely interested, asking Malcolm various questions, though at first she'd seemed nervous.

Trip mentally clapped himself on the back, pleased that he'd managed to get the two of them talking and find himself entertained watching them. Their mannerisms were very similar and they both had the same beautiful, changeable, blue-grey eyes. Athene's hair was longer, just touching her shoulders but their faces were similar, though Athene's features were more delicate and feminine.

He had to admit to himself, because he wouldn't admit to anyone else, that he found Athene attractive. Which was strange, as he glanced at Malcolm because he knew damn well he wasn't attracted to the armoury chief. They were friends, a great team and Trip was pleased at the way he'd gotten Malcolm to unbend and relax more around his crewmates. It was a long mission they were on and he hated to think of anyone, even an uptight limey like Malcolm to feel alone. Especially with the upbringing he'd had, recalling Jon confiding in him the awkward conversation he'd had with Mr and Mrs Reed.

"_I'm a bloody fool, you know that, Commander?" Malcolm snapped. "You'd think I know after Risa and that space station, not to follow you into one of your hairbrained schemes!"_

"_But then you'd know I'd jus' go off without you, Malcolm," replied Trip, smiling that disarming smile of his, as they walked back to the shuttlepod, their uniforms ripped and covered with mud. "And then you'd be fretting about about what trouble I was in and that you shoulda been there to look out for me!"_

"_One of these days, I won't bother, I'll let you get into your own mess by yourself. It'll serve you bloody right if you fall down a cliff or get eaten by cannibals or or get turned into a Nausiccan's love slave!"_

"_But then you wouldn't get the pleasure of telling me 'I told you so'!" said Trip, flinging an arm around his compatriot. "You have to admit, it was kind of fun!"_

"_Yes, sliding down a filthy, narrow, passage, with no idea where it was going to end up was the highlight of my day!" Yet Trip noticed a twinkle in his eye and a twitch at his mouth._

"_Which is why I heard you whooping as we got near the bottom!"_

He listened quietly, getting the distinct impression that both Malcolm and Athene had forgotten his presence. He noticed T'Pol coming in, presumably to get her usual night time cup of tea and figured it would be safe to leave Malcolm and Athene together to join her. They didn't even notice when he got up.

She raised an eyebrow in their direction and he smirked.

"Yep, I did that, T'Pol," he said. "Jus' needed to find them some common ground."

"You are to be commended, Commander," her tone cool, yet he was pleased that she sounded very slightly impressed. "Though their current… camaraderie may not last."

Trip rolled his eyes.

"Don't rain on my parade, will ya," he said. He grinned. "I reckon it could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

T'Pol merely looked at him over her cup of mint tea, once again reminding him of his old fourth grade teacher, who always knew exactly which child in her class had programmed her whiteboard to say 'Miss Clinker is a Stinker', every time she used her favourite saying 'What day is it and why?'

"I do not think you appreciate the gravity of the situation, Commander," she said censoriously. "The DNA of a member of our crew was taken without his permission and used to create a clone, to an unknown, possibly dangerous, purpose."

Trip frowned, all good humour fled.

"I do understand that," he said. "More'n anyone here. After all, I'm the one who got knocked up sticking my hand in a box of rocks. So, yeah, I know all about bodily violations. 'Cause when it comes right down to it, that's what happened on that Xyrillian ship, no matter how you tried to blame me for it!"

He felt a moment of triumph when she glanced down at her tea.

"I accepted that I misjudged you, Commander," she said. "I had perhaps thought you had moved on from that incident."

Trip's gaze softened slightly.

"I have and I know you're sorry for what you said. Somethin' like that kind of sticks with you and I guess in a weird way, this thing with Malcolm reminded me of it."

"That is understandable, Commander. If you'll excuse me, I intend to retire for the night." She got up and nodded to him.

"G'night, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite," he said with a mischievous grin. She shook her head slightly. _Humans_ she thought.

Trip went back over to Malcolm and Athene's table, they seemed to winding down conversation.

"I'm going to hit the hay now," he said. "You two gonna be okay?"

"I'll escort Athene back to her quarters and have Crewman Benz meet us there, Commander," said Malcolm. "If that's alright with you?" He addressed Athene with the last question.

"Thank you, Malcolm, that would be kind of you." She looked up at Trip. "Thank you as well, Comm- _Trip_. It was good of you to take me to see the film. I enjoyed it immensely."

Trip nodded and smiled.

"Glad to hear it, I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast?" At Athene's nod, his face lit up with a beaming smile. "G' night!"

He wandered out of the mess hall, feeling unaccountably happy.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Apologies for the delay, I've had a busy couple of days! Plus I had another story that just needed a final chapter completing as I'm trying to wrap a few things up this week, as next weekend I'm off to Mersey Sci Fantom next weekend to see Dominic Keating, I am soooo excited!**

**I'm going to try and aim to get this story finished this week, but don't hold me to it! Oh and virtual chocolate chip cookie if you know where the quote is from and who said it :)**

* * *

"I've been examining the latest telemetry from the probe, Second."

"And what have you found, First?"

"I don't believe we'll need to rewrite those subroutines. They seem to have rewritten themselves!"

"How intriguing! That hasn't happened for at least… eighty cycles!"

"I wonder if we'll see the same outcome, I hope not. I rather like this species, they are rather enchanting."

"I can't see the appeal myself, First. Still I wish no harm to come to these people, that's not what our entertainments are for. We should start considering contingency plans for intervention."  
"Let's wait and see shall we? They should be arriving shortly. I wonder how long before they find the first clue?"

"Not long, I think. Perhaps a couple of their hours."

* * *

"Mornin', Athene," said Trip. "How are you doin'?"

"I'm fine, thank you Trip," she said. "And you?"

"I'm okay," he smiled back at her. "Anyway, the cap'n's expecting me, so I'll see you around." He nodded to Crewman Etsuko Nakamura, her gamma shift guard, before heading to the captain's mess.

"Morning, Cap'n, Subcommander," he said as he sat at the table. The captain and T'Pol returned his greetings.

"How long before we reach Omega Cephei?" asked Trip.

"3.7 hours, Commander," replied T'Pol.

"I gather you got Malcolm talking to his clone, last night," said Jon casually. "After taking her to the movie."

"Yeah, I did," said Trip, after swallowing a mouthful of scrambled egg. "I thought it might help to get them both to relax around each other."

"You know she can't stay here, Trip. One way or another she'll have to leave the ship."

"You can't seriously be thinkin' of just abandonin' her somewhere? Where the hell is she gonna go?"

"I've had orders from Starfleet Command, Trip. She's to be returned to Earth if we can't find where she comes from. She'll be given over to the care of the civilian authorities."

"Oh," said Trip. "I guess there's not a lot else they can do."

They finished the rest of the meal quietly. T'Pol got up and left but Jon caught his friend's arm before he could follow her.

"Trip, as your friend I'm telling you this; don't get attached to her." Jon looked searchingly into the engineer's face. Trip returned his stare with his best poker face.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You have a tendency to become attracted to people very easily, especially if they are outside the norm. I just don't want to see you getting hurt. We still don't know that much about Athene and she could still be concealing some of her knowledge from us."

Jon paused and gathered his thoughts.

"Both Crewmen Miller and Benz have approached me with concerns about how much of Malcolm's knowledge she has, both of them have been observing as well as guarding her. Malcolm picked them and Crewman Nakamura because they all have excellent observation skills. In particular, Miller has a graduate degree in psychology. Both Miller and Benz agree she is hiding something. She knows things about the ship which she could only know if she had more of Malcolm's memories than she's letting on."

"Like what?"

"Miller took her to show her around the gymnasium. She asked if she wanted to take some exercise and Athene agreed. Miller noticed various things during that time that she said rang alarm bells. Apparently Athene performed a warm up very much like the one Malcolm does and she picked the same treadmill that he always does."

"That could be coincidental!" protested Trip.

"Maybe, but when she was on the treadmill, Miller was on the mat shadow boxing and Athene offered to be a sparring partner. She took Miller down with a technique that Malcolm himself taught Miller. Miller and Benz also commented she seemed to pick up using our technology suspiciously quickly. Fortunately, I'd asked T'Pol before we assigned her quarters to restrict her access to our databanks."

"We already know she has some of his knowledge," said Trip. "Maybe she just doesn't know what she knows until she needs that knowledge, if you see what I mean?"

"You could be right, Trip," said Jon in a conciliatory tone. "But I still want you to be on your guard."

"Fine, considered me warned," said Trip, trying not to sound sulky. "I'd better get to engineering."

He walked out and was secretly glad Athene had already left the mess.

* * *

When they arrived at Omega Cephei, Travis put the ship into a standard orbit around the fourth planet. The captain gave orders to start scanning for the source of the odd theta radiation signature, concentrating on the areas where Malcolm and his team had been.

"Captain," said T'Pol, after about an hour of intensive scanning, "I've located the radiation signature, the source appears to be a cave complex."

"Great work, Subcommander," he said. He tapped the comm panel on the arm of his chair. "Archer to Tucker."

"Tucker here, have you found something?"

"Yes, we have. Come to the bridge please."

"Aye, Cap'n." A few minutes later Trip came onto the bridge.

"Are we going down to the planet?" he asked.

"I want you to take the bridge," said Jon. "Lieutenant Reed and Subcommander T'Pol will be accompanying me down to the planet."

"Captain, I'd recommend additional security," said Malcolm. "We should assume it is likely we are entering a hostile situation."

"See to it then, Lieutenant."

The captain, Malcolm and T'Pol left the bridge. Turning to the ensign who had taken over from T'Pol, he issued her with instructions.

"Keep a sensor lock on the landing party at all times. Don't let them outta your sight."

"Aye sir."

"What do you think they'll find down there, Commander?" asked Travis.

"I don't know, jus' hope they find something!"

* * *

Down on the planet, they exited the shuttlepod, though the captain ordered one of the security guards to remain. All of them, at Malcolm's insistence, were armed. The planet was stark, sandy and rocky, the beginnings of life evidenced in the soil and the reddish seas. Ahead of them, about half a kilometre from the shuttlepod, was a series of rocky hills, that contained a cave complex that extended several hundred metres below ground. The geological team had made extensive survey of it but had found nothing out of the ordinary. Yet according to the recent scan by T'Pol, it was the source of the theta radiation signature.

The three men and one woman picked their way carefully amongst the rocky ground, towards the caves, on the look out for any sign of trouble. It was quiet apart from the slight breeze that blew dust across the plain.

The atmosphere seemed different to when they were last here, although plenty of work was done by the science teams carrying out various surveys and the security staff whi were busy with their 'Capture the Flag' exercise, there had been a convivial air as the crew enjoyed their foray onto another strange new planet. The exobiologists were particularly pleased by the opportunity to visit a planet that had similar conditions to Earth, nearly a billion years ago.

Yet as Jon picked his way to the caverns, he felt a growing sense of unease. T'Pol, to his left was her usual, calm and unperturbable self, but on his right, Malcolm seemed very tense and uneasy, constantly glancing around, his hand resting on his phase pistol. Crewman Anders, the security guard accompanying them was scouting slightly ahead.

Eventually they reached the cave complex and looked cautiously in, both T'Pol and Malcolm concentrating on their scanners.

"In there," said T'Pol, one elegant hand pointing towards one of the cave entrances. They stepped in cautiously, turning on the flashlights they had attached to their upper arms.

Jon felt his sense of unease growing, with a distinct impression that someone was watching them. He pulled out his communicator and opened a channel to the ship.

"Archer to Enterprise,"

"Aye, Cap'n, what's your status?" Tucker answered.

"We're just inside the cave complex, tracking the radiation signature. Have you still got us on sensors?"

"Yes, Cap'n. Are you going in?"

"We are. We'll check in every half an hour," said Archer. "Trip, here's nothing in these rocks that we'll block our comm signal?"

"Not that I'm aware of," said Trip.

"The geology team did a thorough scan of the area and two of them went in three hundred metres deep without any loss of communications," added T'Pol.

"Good," said Jon. "Archer out."

The four of them set off into the complex, following the radiation signature. The walked for approximately an hour and half, checking in with the ship without any problems. The caverns didn't vary very much in appearance, mainly grey featureless rock. So they were astonished enough to come almost to a crashing halt when they passed down one narrow passage to be confronted by what looked like a door.

"T'Pol," said Jon not taking his eyes off the door, "Is that door…"

"Yes, Captain. It appears to be made from the same material as the pod."

She and the captain went to approach. Jon examined smooth, frictionless surface, frowning as he searched for a way to open it. He remembered the pod appeared to be seamless, until it mysteriously opened. No one knew exactly how, but Commander Tucker had been touching the pod when it opened. Acting on instinct and ignoring the alarmed gasp from Malcolm, he touched the door and it opened, to reveal a white room.

* * *

On board _Enterprise,_ Trip was sat at the engineering station, absently checking the status of the engines while tapping his fingers. He was restless and uneasy, the captain and the others had been on the surface for nearly two hours and he was expecting them to report in any minute.

"Arc… to… terprise!" Trip saw Sato frown as she tapped rapidly away at her console, trying to clean up the comm signal that was fractured by static.

"Tucker, here, Cap'n. Can you read me? You're breaking up?"

"Can't… you… found… room… white… pod!" The comm signal went completely silent, Sato shaking her head, looking frustrated.

"I'm sorry sir, I've lost them, their signal has broken up completely."

"Sir," said the crewman at the science station, "Their biosigns have disappeared!"

"Dammit," said Trip. "Comm Davis at the shuttlepod." Sato complied and immediately had the other security man on the line, who'd reported nothing amiss.

Trip fought the urge to go down to the planet to find the captain and the others. He knew he had to think rationally as the only senior member of the crew left. Besides, he remembered Archer taking him aside after he and Malcolm had rescued him and T'Pol from Coridan, telling him in no uncertain terms he was not to leave the ship in such circumstances again. He turned to Diana Kelly, who was filling in at the tactical station.

"Diana, get three of your people down to the launch bay. Travis," he turned to the young helmsman. "Take them down in _Shuttlepod Two_ then return."

Both Kelly and Mayweather acknowledge the commander and left the bridge.

"What are we going to do, Commander?" asked Hoshi, anxiously.

"I'm trying to figure it out," he said. He smiled at her reassuringly. "Don't worry, we'll get the cap'n and the others back." _We'd better do!_ He felt a knot in his stomach forming as he worried about the fate of his two closest friends, as well as T'Pol and the young Anders.

"Shuttlepod's away sir," said the communication officer. It wouldn't take them long to reach the surface. Once they did so and Ensign Sarda, who was in charge of the away team, contacted the ship.

"Crewman Davis has nothing to report, no unusual activity prior to the others going missing. What do you want us to do, sir?"

"Trace the path the captain's party took, get to where we last heard from them. I want you to hail the ship every fifteen minutes. Anything unusual, be prepared to get out of there."

"Aye, sir," said Sarda. "Don't worry, we'll find them."

"I hope so, but don't put yourself or your people at risk, Ensign."

"Okay, Commander," he said. "Sarda out."

Tucker sighed to himself. Now the waiting begins.

* * *

_"Commander Tucker!" Malcolm walked rapidly to catch up with the engineer, who stopped and turned to wait for him._

_"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"_

_"I wondered if you've had a chance to look at those maintenance requests I sent you this morning."_

_Tucker scrubbed his hand through his hair and smiled apologetically._

_"Sorry, Malcolm, I've been stuck inside a jeffries tube all morning. I'll take a look at it now. Tell you what, let me just finish up in here, I'll get the PADD and we'll discuss them at lunch?"_

_Malcolm hesitated. He was planning to grab a sandwich to eat in the armoury; he'd just received the latest copy of EM Engineers Monthly and he was keen to have a peruse._

_Trip smiled winningly at him, his face open and guileless. Malcolm found himself unwilling to hurt the commander's feelings by refusing him without good reason._

_"C'mon, Lieutenant, I don't see you in the mess hall very often, I jus' want a chance to get to know you a bit better. We're gonna be workin' together a lot."_

_"Fine, Commander, I'll wait for you." He waited while Trip put his tools back in his office and consulted with one of his engineers. They made their way up to the mess, Trip talking animatedly about some teething problems he was having with the second stage plasma accelerators, which was causing some fluctuations in power output to the impulse engines._

_They entered the mess, both of them picking sandwiches and in Trip's case a large slice of pecan pie. __Then they took a table by the window, Malcolm sitting so he was facing the door._

_"How you finding things on the ship so far, Malcolm?"_

_"Fine, sir," he said, "Although-" he clammed up, not wanting to say too much in front of a superior officer that could be seen as critical of the captain._

_"Although what? Is there a problem that I should know about? Gotta tell you I've already bent the cap'n's ear about a few kinks that we didn't get out o' the engine before we rushed outta spacedock."_

_"I'm concerned about the weapons systems, sir," he replied. "You do know we haven't got the plasma cannons online? Two of them haven't even been built let alone installed!"_

_"Yeah, I know," said the commander calmly. "And call me Trip. I guess I'm not one to get hung up on rank, same as the cap'n."_

_Malcolm pursed his lips tightly. Already in the few weeks since the ship left space dock, he'd noticed the captain's very loose adherence to protocol. He'd very quickly realised his job, to keep the captain and the crew safe, was going to be much harder than he had anticipated. Inwardly he cursed his extended secondment to Section 31 which had delayed his rise in Starfleet rank. Then again, if he had had the rank of Commander, as he would've expected by this stage in his career, he still wasn't convinced the captain would listen to his recommendations._

_"You okay, Malcolm?" said Trip, abruptly bringing Malcolm back to the here and now._

_"I'm fine, Comm- Trip," he said. "Can we discuss those maintenance requests now?"_

_"Sure, if you like," he said, though he didn't pick up the PADD. "You know we're not out looking for a fight, don't ya? We got plenty of torpedoes if we do need to defend ourselves."_

_"That maybe so, but there may well be a fight out there looking for us. It would be nice if we had a few more options regarding shooting back."_

_"The cap'n wants our mission to be one of peace and exploration. We're out here to make friends, not enemies."_

_Malcolm stared at the commander and wondered at his naïveté. He was so innocent, as was the captain, yet he knew one day soon the scales would fall from their eyes and they would lose that innocence, as he had so many years ago. It saddened him, but it was also a bitter pill to swallow. He knew what the galaxy had out there waiting for them. The things he'd seen and done thanks to Section 31 would horrify Captain Archer and Commander Tucker. Yet he would use that knowledge to help protect them as they went heedless into the night. For as he read in a book once; 'the night is dark and full of terrors.' Those words had already themselves proven prophetic._

_He knew for certain as he listened to the soft slurring tones of the commander's Floridian accent as he talked about the maintenance requests, that he would do whatever he could to protect all of the innocents on this ship._

* * *

Athene woke up abruptly, realising she had fallen asleep reading. The dream was fading but she felt how vivid it was. More and more memories that she realised were Malcolm's and not hers were coming forth making her wonder just who and what she was.

Then, whispering softly in her mind was a voice.

"Go to him, you know what to do."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N This took some doing! Thanks for all the reviews so far :) I think there maybe another couple of chapters to go, but I don't know if I'll finish it off this week, though I imagine I'll be able to work on it over the weekend!**

* * *

"What shall we do with them, First? We only require the test subject."

"We'll send the others back to the ship, we've no need for multiple redundancies. I've activated the secondary programming in the probe now so it and the one called 'Tucker' will be joining them soon."

"Don't be so sure about that. There appears to be some programming conflicts occurring, should we override?"

"No, but let's stop the memory activation. I believe that maybe the source of the conflict. Stimulating those memories may have been an error on my part."

"I shall record that for posterity. It has been at least 348 cycles since you last admitted an error!"

"I've never admitted to being perfect, Second. There is no such thing as infallibility in the universe, despite what the Organians claim."

"They do rather take themselves seriously, I admit. But their methods of exploration have much to recommend them."

"But there non-interventionist policy is impractical and frankly boring. Eventually they will have to break it. It would be very interesting to observe them observing the Humans."

"Do you ever wonder if there is anyone observing us?"

"A higher intelligence than us? Quite possible, I suppose. Perhaps our game here is all part of a larger experiment. Now we can look forward to how this unexpected development will play out."

* * *

"Trip? Trip?" Archer spoke again into the communicator before switching to another frequency. "Archer to _Enterprise_, can you read me?" He shook his head.

T'Pol checked her scanner while Malcolm looked around the room, which contained what looked like a bed and a chair, made from the same metal as the door. The bed had a large pad on it, that was made from the same spongy material as the pod. There didn't appear to be another exit to the room and they realise the door they had come through had also disappeared.

"Could this be the room that Athene was in?" asked the captain as he gazed around the room.

"It maybe, Captain," said T'Pol. "But we need to find a way out of here. There appears to be something blocking my scanner; I cannot scan outside of this room. It seems reasonable to suggest that whatever is blocking my scanner is also blocking our comm signal."

All of them carefully examined the walls but there was not even a single seam in the walls to be seen. Nor could they find a light source, though the room was brightly lit.

Crewman Anders was the first to see an egress open. Just as he was about to speak, something pulled him through. T'Pol was the first to notice him disappear but as she turned to go after him, the wall sealed up after him.

"Captain!" she said. Archer and Reed stepped over to join her looking anxiously at where the crewman had disappeared. So they were helpless witnesses when the egress opened again and they were unable to stop T'Pol being pulled through by an invisible force. Jon and Malcolm chased after her, Jon ahead of Malcolm. But as Jon disappeared through the opening, Malcolm felt another force pulling him back. To his frustration, the exit closed behind the captain, cutting him off from the others. He slammed a fist against the wall.

"Bloody hell!"

* * *

Athene stepped out of her quarters, looking pale and anxious.

"Serena," she said, her voice sounding urgent, "I have to see Commander Tucker!"  
The blond crewman frowned.

"Commander Tucker is on the bridge right now," she said. "I don't think that will be possible."

"Please, it's urgent! Please call him or take me to see him. It's important!"

Seeing how upset the clone was, Serena took pity on her. She took her by the arm and firmly led her back to her quarters.

"I'll Lieutenant Kelly and tell her," she said. "I can't just call the bridge, especially when-" she clammed up, worried she may have said too much.

"When what?" said Athene, sounding imperious. "What's happened?"

Serena ignored her and contacted Ensign Kelly. After a brief conversation, Kelly told Serena she would call her back, sounding a little irritated.

A few minutes later, Commander Tucker called Serena back.

"What's up, Crewman?" he said sounding tense. She could easily read what he didn't say; _This had better be good!_

"Athene says she needs to speak to you urgently," she said. "What do you want me to do, sir?"

There was a slight pause before Tucker spoke again.

"Bring her up to the bridge, Crewman," he said. "I'll see what she has to say. Tucker out."

The comm channel closed and Serena turned to see a look of relief on Athene's face. The two of them left and headed to the bridge.

"I need to speak to you, Commander," Athene said as soon as she stepped out of the turbolift.

"Say your piece, " said Trip, unusually curt. "And make it quick. I gotta a crisis on my hands."

"I need to talk to you alone," she said, her blue grey eyes wide. "Please Trip, I need you to trust me." Trip looked at her, seeing the anxiety on her face.

"Come with me," he said, his voice softening. They both walked into the ready room. Serena made to follow, but Trip shook his head.

"Stay here, Crewman," he said.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Serena turned to Trip.

"I don't know how I know this but you need to trust me, Trip," she said, staring earnestly into his face. "The captain and the others are safe, they will be returning soon, but without Lieutenant Reed."

"What? What about Malcolm?" Trip paled, worried sick about his friend. "Is he okay?"

"Yes, he's fine, just not with the others." She turned to look out of the view port.

"I've been having dreams," she said quietly, "That I am him. I think they are memories."

"Are you saying you have his memories?" asked Trip, approaching her. Athene nodded.

"They've been coming to me over the last few hours. When I came on the bridge, I knew exactly what each station does. I know how many phase pistols and torpedoes there are, the power output of the phase cannons. I remember you and I building the cannons on that aborted journey back to Earth. We argued in the jeffries tube and I wanted to hit you for being such an arse, for sticking to rank and protocol only when it suited you.

"I remember thinking how naïve and idealistic you and the captain were, how you appeared to be cut from the same cloth. I didn't have a very optimistic view of the mission, I feared it was up to me to stop the captain from leading us into catastrophe, with you blindly following him."

"Not you!" he protested. "You mean Malcolm, you're not him!" Yet he sounded uncertain even to his own ears. She turned to face him, ignoring his words.

"I remember the shuttlepod, slowly freezing. Do you know how much it hurt him for you to accuse him of being a 'grim reaper'? Thought I suppose he should apologise for calling you a coward, when he was as much a coward as you."

"What do you mean?" said Trip, mesmerised by the intensity of her blue-grey eyes, hearing Malcolm's voice in his head.

"It wasn't sacrifice that made him stop you; it was the fear of the captain's reaction when he found out he'd allowed his best friend to commit suicide."

"We've talked about this Mal- _Athene_," said Trip, awkwardly. "We were both drunk and stupid. And I don't want to discuss with you anymore!" He took a deep breath before continuing.

"We have to get him back, Athene," he said softly as she stiffened at his approach. "I'm beggin' you to help me. We need him!"

"Because he keeps you all safe," she replied. "I can keep you all safe. Just as you made him feel safe that night when he thought you were dead."

Trip stared at her in confusion.

"He had a dream that you died in the shuttlepod. It was so real that when he woke he used the security override to enter your quarters to check you were still alive. You woke up and told him you were cold so he got into the bed with you. You pulled him into your arms and held him."

Trip's eyes narrowed.

"I don't remember that," he accused, uncomfortable with the thought of the intimacy it implied.

"He left early, before you were awake. I don't think you were properly awake when he got into your bed. Let's face it, it would've been terribly awkward if you'd woken up with him in your arms. And he didn't want to think about the fact he had crawled into the bed with his superior officer as if he were a frightened child."

Trip shook his head, agitated. He felt as if he was a voyeur into Malcolm's deepest thoughts and memories, ones that he had chosen not to share with Trip. He was the closest friend the younger man had and the engineer knew how deeply private Malcolm was, even more than he.

"Stop this, Athene," he said firmly. "You're not him. Now we're gonna go down to the surface, as soon as the cap'n and the others get back and you're gonna help me find him!"

"Bridge to Commander Tucker!" The comm startled them both.

"Commander, the captain has just contacted us from the surface. He has the subcommander and Crewman Anders with her but Lieutenant Reed is still missing! They're heading back to the shuttlepod with the rest of Ensign Sarda's team."

Trip empathised with the worry he could hear in Hoshi's voice, a cold feeling tightening his stomach as Athene's words were proven to be truth.

"Be right out, Ensign," he said, then closed the channel. He caught Athene by the hand and pulled her out on to the bridge.

"Travis, you got the bridge. I'm taking the shuttlepod down to the surface to look for Malcolm," he said.

"Sir, do you think that's wise?" said Hoshi, exchanging a worried glance with Travis. "Maybe you should wait until the captain gets back?"

Trip pursed his lips.

"I know what I'm doin', Ensign. C'mon, Athene." He marched them to the turbolift. In the launch bay they both got into the shuttlepod. Trip thought he probably shouldn't be surprised when Athene slid into the pilot's seat; Malcolm was after all a more skilled pilot than Trip. He still found her familiarity with the controls unnerving as she quickly ran through the preflight checks.

He contacted the bridge and let them know they were ready. The launch bay doors opened then the shuttlepod was lowered out and released. Athene skilfully flew the shuttlepod down to the planet, Trip keeping a close eye on the controls.

They landed near _Shuttlepod One_ just as the captain's group were approaching, the captain looking annoyed.

"Trip, why are you here and why have you brought Athene with you?" he demanded.

"She's gonna help me find Malcolm, Cap'n." Trip said, resolutely.

"We're coming with you," Jon replied. "The rest of you all take one of the shuttlepods back to the ship."

"Captain, I must object," said T'Pol. "We should all head back to the ship and attempted to find another way to locate Lieutenant Reed."

"No," said both Trip and Jon at the same time.

"Cap'n, she says she can help me find him," said Trip. "Jus' me and her. There's no use risking you and T'Pol or anyone else!"

Jon looked at Trip, indecision warring on his face.

"Captain," said T'Pol. "Perhaps the commander is right. We may have already lost one valuable officer, we do not need to risk losing another two more."

"Look, T'Pol is agreein' with me for once. Chalk this up as a historic occasion and let me and Athene go!"

"Fine," snapped the captain. "Just be careful Trip." He looked coldly at Athene.

"If anything happens to Trip or Malcolm…" he didn't bother to complete the threat.

"Understood, Captain," replied Athene, drawing herself up into a military stance that looked so terribly familiar. "Commander, let's go."

* * *

Malcolm fruitlessly explored the room but they found no sign of any exit. He kept trying his comm in the vain hope that whatever was blocking his signal would desist.

He thought a couple of hours had passed when another door opened in the room. Cautiously, Malcolm approached it, looking through to see a long white corridor. He stepped into the corridor and the door closed and disappeared again, leaving him shut off from the room, so they continued walking down the corridor.

The corridor eventually opened up into a large hall, the ceilings of which rose several hundred metres overhead. Malcolm used his scanner to measure the dimensions.

"Impossible!" he said out loud. He knew he hadn't descended that far, perhaps only about fifty metres from ground level. The highest peak in the group of hills the caves were located was about one hundred and twenty metres, yet according to his scanner the height of the hall was over five hundred metres. All surfaces of the hall were white, as in the room he'd just left.

Then he saw Trip and Athene. He nearly called out to them when he realised that what he was looking at was a three-d projection, though he couldn't see the source of it.

"I wish I could hear what they saying," he said, frustrated. To his amazement, he then could.

"I don't think it's much further to go," he heard Trip say. "According to the scanner, the door the others found is no more than another half an hour's walk away."

Athene merely nodded in response. Malcolm continued watching as the two of them walked along in silence, then saw them approach the door. At Trip's touch the door opened and they walked into the same room Malcolm had been in earlier.

"This is it," she said. "I was here, this is where they kept me after they created me."

"They?" asked Trip, "Who are they?"

Athene sat on the bed, looking frustrated.

"I don't know!"

"Hey, hey! I know you damn well watching us, tell us who you are!" Trip was shouting at the room, pacing up and down.

"Trip, if they want you to know who they are they would tell you," she said, impatiently. "Will you sit, please?"

Malcolm saw Trip slump onto the bed next to Athene, looking anxious. He saw Athene take Trip's hand and squeeze it gently.

"I'm so sorry for all of this," she said, sounding utterly dejected. "Please believe me that I don't want anyone getting hurt. I really had not even the slightest inkling what was going on until the captain and the others disappeared."

Trip squeezed her hand back and smiled at her.

"If you really have all of Malcolm's memories, you could've done a lot harm to us and to the ship," he said. "And it seems to me you got more than just his memories."

Malcolm watched, both fascinated and unnerved. _Athene has my memories?_

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You're more like him than you know," he said. "I think you, just like him, care about all of us on the ship. He can be an uptight, anal, sonuvabitch, but I know he'd lay down his life for anyone of us. I'm kinda hoping that whoever created you, gave you those characteristics as well."

Malcolm watch the scene in disbelief. He was touched by Trip's faith in him, but at the same time he felt a terrible sense of guilt. _I'm not the man you think I am, Trip_, he thought sadly. _And I fear you are being terribly misled._ He could see the tell tale signs, the way Athene leaned in closer to Trip, tilting her head and looking up at the engineer through her long, dark lashes.

_He hid his revulsion as he approached the man, plastering a seductive smile on his face, moving with a deliberate, sinuous grace. He was well aware that he was very much this man's type as he leaned over to ask him what he was drinking. As predicted, the man took the bait. After a a couple of drinks and inane small talk, he offered to take him to somewhere discreet._

_Afterwards, he went home and took a long hot shower. He had the man's comm code and appointment to meet with him again. At least no money exchanged hands this time, but it didn't make him feel any less of a whore. No, he was after information, the kind that would be difficult to obtain legally. So he would gain the man's trust, make him feel desired, with his words, gestures and seductive touches. Then he would get what he wanted and the man would never see him again._

_It wasn't the first time Section 31 had required such a task of him. The first time, he'd seduced a prominent EarthGov minister, who had been supremely flattered at gaining the attention of an attractive man young enough to be her son. Again it was information he'd be after; dirt to dig up in order to discredit her. She was suspected to have links to a certain group of people who were increasingly strident about speaking out against Starfleet's Warp program, calling it a waste of money. It had been easy enough to discover she'd been taking bribes in order to vote in certain ways. It was after that he realised what a terrible error he'd made in accepting the Section's offer to work for them, in return for them financing him through Starfleet Academy. _

_He'd managed to bury that part of him beneath the model officer he tried so hard to be, perhaps trying too hard sometimes. But there was always the fear that his past would come back to haunt him._

So he watched helplessly as Athene leaned across and pulled Trip into a tender, yet passionate kiss.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N Sorry for the delay! I had a fab, fab time at the convention it was awesome! DK was brilliant, and so were the other guests.**

**My phone signal in Southport was really poor, besides I was having too much fun at the convention to write!**

**I think this will be the penultimate chapter. Then I can mark this brain fart (as I described it on Saturday!) complete!**

"Welcome, Third. Are you aware of all that is going on?"

"Yes, thank you First. This species is very interesting. And the choice of test subjects is rather serendipitous, with the Denobulan and Vulcan for baseline comparison."

"I believe that is why First chose this particular vessel."

"Indeed it is, Second. Have you discovered much of interest, Third?"

"I have! Their scientific theories are most interesting! The progress they have made compared to Vulcans and Denobulans is actually rather impressive, very fast! They appear to be a highly adaptable race."

"See, Second? This lends credence to my theory that the Humans will eventually out-evolve the Vulcans."

"If they don't destroy themselves first! They have a much greater capacity for violence."

"Perhaps, but when we have pursued this particular game with some other species, such as the Klingons and the Cardassians, they destroyed the probe very quickly. The Orions enslaved the probe-"

"That was entirely predictable, First, but as usual you would not listen to reason!"

"I'm sure that you did learn something from that, First?"

"Thank you, Third. We did! We have become better at predicting the reactions of lesser species."

"So what is your prediction for what will happen next, First?"

"It appears they will follow the same pattern as the Illendrans. Rather unfortunate for 'Tucker'. I rather like him."

"I thought you try and avoid harm to these lesser species?"

"We do, Third. Sadly though, it is sometimes unavoidable."

* * *

Trip pulled away abruptly.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said, shaken. "This isn't the time for this, we're supposed to be looking for Malcolm. Instead, we're stuck in this room with no way out!"

Athene got up off the bed and moved away, hugging herself tightly.

"I'm sorry, Trip," she said quietly. "That was very inappropriate. I… don't even know why I did it!"

"It's okay, Athene," he said. "In any other circumstances, I guess I'd be flattered. But we need to to figure out a way out of here." He wondered if he should say more but he didn't want to hurt her feelings unnecessarily. He'd wait until they got back to the ship and then he'd let her down gently.

"Of course," she said. But Trip heard the slight note of frustration in her voice, which made him wonder what kind of hidden agenda she had. He got up and thumped the wall, feeling pretty frustrated himself. To his surprise, a door opened, showing a corridor. He cautiously looked out but couldn't see the end. Shrugging he turned to face Athene.

"C'mon, I guess _they_ want us to go there." She followed him as he walked through the corridor, which seemed endless.

Eventually they made it to a large hall, cavenous hall, were they were both startled by a voice.

"Commander!"

Trip saw Malcolm walking towards him, his thunderous expression matching the icy tone of his voice.

"Malcolm!" he said. "Thank God you're alright!"

The armoury chief merely glared at him.

"I'm fine… despite having to witness some rather disturbing scenes," he said, curtly. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"

Trip looked at him in confusion.

"What the hell are you talking about, Lieutenant?" he growled. _The ungrateful sonovabitch! I'm here to find him and he gives me a load of shit!_

"I'm talking about you and that… that… thing!" he pointed at Athene, staring at her in disgust.

Trip turned to Athene.

"I think you need to give us a little privacy," he said. Her face curiously blank, she walked off.

"I think you need to spell it out to me, Lieutenant," Trip said, with an edge to his voice. "Because I don't think we're on the same page here!"

"I saw you," Malcolm spat. "The two of you rather cosy together and I saw you kiss her!"

Trip looked incredulous.

"Firstly, she kissed me and not the other way 'round. Secondly, I pushed her away! I made it clear to her that I wasn't interested and that we needed to find you!"

Malcolm said nothing at first, simply stood with his arms folded, his lips pursed. Eventually he spoke.

"Oh," he said.

"'Oh'? Is that all you have to say? What _exactly_ did you see?"

Malcolm swallowed, now looking nervous. He described the three dimensional images he'd seen of Trip and Athene.

"Then you kissed and the image disappeared," he concluded.

"You saw her kiss me and not me kissing her," Trip said. "And you didn't see what happened after. You jus' jumped to conclusions."

"You weren't exactly fighting her off!"

Trip glared at the other man, folding his arms and unconsciously copying his stance.

"She took me by surprise, Malcolm! To be honest, it kinda felt like kissing my little sister." Trip looked embarrassed.

Malcolm slumped.

"I've been a complete idiot, haven't I?" he said quietly. "Commander, I am so sorry."

"Yeah you have," said Trip, not willing to be that easily appeased. "You know what? I am sick of people assuming I can't keep it in my pants. You know how many women I've had a serious relationship with? Three. You know how many women I've slept with? Assuming you slept with all those women you wrote letters to on the shuttlepod, you've slept with nearly twice as many as I have. I didn't even sleep with Ruby 'cause she turned me down!"

"You're right," conceded Malcolm, "I have misjudged you. I envy you in some ways, Commander. People, particularly women, seem to gravitate to you so very easily, I simply assumed…"

"I find a lot of women attractive," said Trip, "Including Athene. I think Hoshi is cute, T'Pol is beautiful and Liz has the sweetest smile. But I need somethin' more than that. Hopefully one day, I'll find it. And if you don't think women don't find you attractive, I think you're looking in the wrong direction. 'Cause I've seen plenty of 'em eyeing you up."

Malcolm smiled at him then sat on the ground.

"You're a hopeless romantic, aren't you Trip?" he said.

Trip sat down next to him.

"'Fraid so, Malcolm," he cheerfully agreed. "You're the one who's gonna have a girl in every port, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind you. Not me, I'm still looking for the One."

"So, just out of interest, where do you see yourself in ten years time?" asked Malcolm, curiously.

"Workin' in warp research, married and working on a brood of little Tuckers," Trip smiled. "With a few dogs as well, in some sprawling old house in Old San Fran, with a big garden that has a tree with a swing."

"Sounds, idyllic," said Malcolm wistfully. "I can't see myself settling down. I certainly hope to captain my own ship one day and I don't feel that is necessarily compatible with having a family. I don't want to be an absentee father like my own was, away at sea for months at a time."

Trip looked sympathetically at the younger man. He patted him on the shoulder.

"I think you'd make a helluva starship commander, one day. I know the cap'n thinks so too. But don't be so quick to dismiss having a family one day. Maybe we'll both meet the girls of our dreams one day."

"As long as they aren't one and the same," said Malcolm dryly. Trip looked at him and they both started laughing. Eventually the laughter petered out.

"C'mon," said Trip, getting up and holding a hand out to Malcolm. "We'd better find a way out of here."

Malcolm allowed the taller man to pull him up then looked around him.

"Where's Athene?"

* * *

On board _Enterprise_, other events were unfolding. On the bridge, the captain and the rest of the bridge officers were looking at Trip, Malcolm and Athene. Only it wasn't them at all. The three imposters, as Jon thought of them at first, had materialised on the bridge to everyone's shock, with no transporter effect. At first, the crew had thought it was their lost officers returned to them, but they were quickly disabused of that notion.

"Your crewmates are unharmed," said the one who looked like Trip. However, he sounded nothing like the Floridian engineer. His voice was smooth, accentless and androgynous.

"They will be returned to you very soon," said the one who looked like Malcolm. His voice was similar, yet subtly different.

"Who are you and what have you done with my crew?" demanded the captain angrily. "Are you responsible for Athene?"

"We are indeed," said 'Athene'. "She has proved to be an interesting creation."

"We are explorers as yourselves," said 'Trip'. "We are interested in lesser races, watching them grow and evolve, examining how they react in different situations. I am particularly interested in examining how your different genders interact with each other."

Jon frowned, not happy with this latest development. Despite their reassurances, Jon wasn't convinced that these beings didn't present some kind of danger to the crew.

"I request," he said, carefully deferential. "That you return our crewmembers as soon as possible, so we can be on our way."

"All in good time, Captain," said 'Trip'.

Then they were gone in the blink of an eye.

The captain turned to T'Pol.

"Did you get anything on the sensors that could give us a clue where they came from?"

"No, Captain. They did not register on our sensors."

"But they were right there!' Jon said, belatedly realising that wasn't the brightest thing to say.

"I'm aware of that captain," said T'Pol. "Nevertheless, our sensors failed to identify them." She then turned to her console again.

"Captain, I'm picking two human biosigns from the surface," said T'Pol. Jon looked up both hopeful and concerned.

"Hail them, Hoshi," he ordered. The communications officer did so, then nodded as she opened the channel.

"Archer to Tucker," he said. "What's your status?"

"I've found Malcolm, Cap'n, but we lost Athene!"

Jon frowned, trying to recall what the presences on the bridge had said about her.

"I want both of you to get in the shuttlepod and come back to the ship," he said.

"But, Cap'n!"

"That's an order, Trip," he said cutting the engineer off.

* * *

When the two men left the shuttlepod, they found the captain waiting for them. Trip went up the ladder first and spoke to the captain.

"We have to find her, she's all alone down there!"

"What happened?" asked Jon.

Malcolm stayed quiet as Trip relayed what had happened, though he noticed Trip made no mention of the kiss or their subsequent argument.

"We've had some visitors," said the captain and relayed what happened on the bridge.

"So these alien beings are responsible for Athene?" asked Malcolm. "They took my DNA, made her and then deliberately planted her where we'd find her?" He took a deep breath, realising he was sounding increasingly strident.

"So it appears, Malcolm," said the captain, as he led them to the turbolift. "Seems they found us 'interesting'."

Trip scowled.

"Great, so we were the entertainment for a bunch of advanced aliens then?"

"So it would seem," said the captain grimly.

"So what about Athene? Are we jus' gonna go without tryin' to find her? Leave her there for those aliens?"

"I don't know, Trip," admitted the captain. "I suggest we discuss this further, try and contact these aliens."  
When they stepped out onto the bridge, the captain turned to Hoshi.

"Open a channel, all frequencies, aim it at the planet," he said. "Let's see if we can get those beings to talk to us again."

"Yes, sir," she said. "I've directed it towards the source of the radiation signature."

"Thanks, Hoshi." She nodded back at him.

"This is Captain Archer of the _Enterprise_. I respectfully request to speak to the beings who were on our ship earlier."

He nodded again at Hoshi, who cut the channel then set p the transmission to repeat. The captain wasn't sure if he would get a response so he began mentally planning to send a team down to investigate. However they did not wait wrong before he saw Athene standing before him.

"Athene!" said Trip, "You're-"

"I am not she," said 'Athene' and Jon recognised the voice from the being on the bridge earlier. "The probe you refer to as 'Athene' is safe back in our custody."

"What will you do with her?" asked the captain, giving a warning glare to Trip.

"We'll examine the data she can provide us to learn more about your species. You, of course, are free to go."

"And then what?" said Trip, suspiciously, ignoring the captain's angry glance.

"We will no longer require her and will terminate her existence."

Even Malcolm looked shocked at this seemingly callous pronouncement. Trip and Jon looked sickened and Hoshi let out a gasp.

"You can't do that!" stated Trip. "You may have created her but she's still a livin', breathin', thinkin' human being!"

"Trip, quiet down and let me handle this," said the captain forcefully. "With respect, my chief engineer is right. Our species would view this as cold blooded murder."

'Athene' frowned.

"We have no further use for her and she cannot survive on our plane of existence. The planet below has no other life on it, the structures that you saw were simply a temporary construct. She is merely sentient because we programmed her to be."

"That maybe so, but it doesn't change the fact she _is_ a sentient being. The thought of creating such a life only to end it because it serves no useful purpose is abhorrent to us!"

"Your compassion does you credit, captain," 'Athene' said. "Is this a common trait in your species?"

"For the most part, yes," said Jon, honestly. "There are some exceptions. Humans aren't all cut from the same cloth."

'Athene' tilted her head and frowned slighty.

"Ah, I understand your metaphor," she said. "So what do you suggest we do with her?"

"Let us take her with us," suggested the captain. "We can find a place for her on our home planet."

'Athene' nodded. "I will consider your suggestion." Then she disappeared.

"Captain," said Malcolm. "I don't want her to die any more than you do, but are you sure this is wise? What exactly will Starfleet Command do with her? She has all of my memories!"

Trip was about to say something but then he remembered his discomfort at Athene disclosing Malcolm's memories to him. He wouldn't be too pleased if there was someone walking around with all his deepest thoughts and most private memories. Instead, he looked sympathetically at the younger man, thinking that perhaps Malcolm felt violated by the alien beings casual disregard for his privacy. He remembered when he, the captain and three other crewmwmbers were caught in a sentient web like creature, the panic he'd felt when he realised his thoughts could be seen by the others as well as the alien creature.

"These beings have demonstrated a sophisticate ability to manipulate the mind," said T'Pol. "It could be that the memories of Lieutenant Reed could be removed. However, I am compelled to remind you that she isn't really Human, she is a construct belonging to those beings."

"The cap'n had the same argument with those beings already," snapped Trip. "Surely, if we jus; sit back and do nothing, we'll be jus' as responsible for her death as them."

"I think you're right, Trip," said Jon. "I'll speak to Admiral Forrest, I want his rubber stamp on this decision. T'Pol, can you find which Vulcan ship is closest to us? I think we'll need one to get her to Earth. One thing is for certain, she can't stay here."

"Too bloody right," muttered Malcolm. The captain pretended not to hear.

"Hoshi, get me Admiral Forrest, please and patch it to my ready room."

"Aye, Captain," she said, as Jon headed to the ready room. He stopped at the door and turned back to face the two senior offices.

"Trip, Malcolm, both of you report to Phlox, I want him to check you both over. That's an order," he added seeing them both about to protest.

Both men entered the turbolift and sent it down to E deck. But shortly after the lift started moving, Trip pushed the override button and stopped it.

"I think you're right to be concerned about Athene," he said. "She told me some stuff about you."

"Like what?" asked Malcolm, a worried look on his face.

"Conversations we'd had, your thoughts on a coupla missions… and about the night after we were released from sickbay, after the shuttlepod incident."

Malcolm turned pale.

"She told you that?" he said, mortified, "Sir, I-"

"It's okay, I don't think either of us were thinkin' straight back then, probably why Phlox diagnosed us both with post traumatic stress a few days later. Anna went to the doctor to tell him I'd kept messing with the climate controls in engineering, turning the heating up. And I had a panic attack in the launch bay when I went down to help the engineers who were removing some of the damaged circuitry in the shuttlepod."

Malcolm sighed and relaxed.

"Thank you, Trip," he said quietly. "I worried you would think less of me."

Trip put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"You, my friend, are one of the bravest people I know. I'm proud to work with you, to know you. Even if you are a pain in the ass at times." Trip grinned at the other man and Malcolm smiled back at him.

Malcolm set the lift away again.

"We'd better get going," he said. "Otherwise Phlox will send out a search party!"

After Phlox had checked them out and declared them fit for duty the next morning, they both headed for the mess for some much needed chow. The captain had already informed them they were off duty until tomorrow, unless the aliens contacted them again. So far they hadn't. He did say that the admiral had agreed that Starfleet Command would take custody of Athene, eventually passing her to the civilian authorities who would hopefully find a place for her to live out her life.

They both ate quietly, deep in their own thoughts until they had finished their meals.

"Malcolm," said Trip. "You wouldn't really leave your clone there to die would you?"

Malcolm let out a sigh.

"No, of course not," he said. "But I hope you understand how difficult this is for me."

"I think I do," replied Trip, nodding. "I hope we can find a solution."

They both got up to head to their respective quarters, when they were paged to come to the Bridge. Trip looked at Malcolm apprehensively.

"I guess the cap'n has heard from those aliens."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N So here it is ends. The ending is a bit ridiculous but I did warn you that it could be bollocks!**

**By the way my new avatar is my new mug, a present from the lovely, lovely, lovely LoyaulteMeLie. She is a superstar! **

"It seems you misjudged Tucker, First."

"So it does, Second. And I'm glad of it. So, Third, how do you think we should proceed with the probe? Should we acquiesce to the wishes of the Humans."

"I must confess, I was surprised at this turn of events. It's gratifying to know that the universe still holds some surprises for us."

"It would be supremely arrogant of us to presume we know all of the knowledge of the universe, Third."

"True, Second. And life would be rather boring if we did! So, Third, do we give the probe to the Humans?"

"I believe we should. The implanted memories from the test subject will fade, replaced with new memories and experiences. We should arrange for the data to be downloaded from it once the probe reaches the end of its natural life."

"Again agreed, Second. This gives us an unparalled opportunity for further study of these species. Third, do you wish to contact the Humans again yourself or shall we all go?"

"I see no reason for further contact. Let us prepare the probe and leave her where they will find her."

* * *

Malcolm and Trip entered the bridge.

"There's been a biosign detected on the surface," said the captain. "It's safe to presume it's Athene."

"We're gonna go get her?"

"Yes, Trip. You and Malcolm are with me." The three men made their way to the launch bay and boarded _Shuttlepod One_, Malcolm taking the pilot's seat. When they arrived on the planet, Trip got out his scanner and searched for the biosign.

"That way," he said, pointing towards the hills.

Within a half hour of brisk walking, they could see a figure ahead walking towards them.

"It's her," said the captain. She had seen them too and her pace began to quicken.

When they met up, she stopped and looked at them.

"They told me you'd come back for me," she said. "I'm ready to go,"

"Good," said the captain. They all turned to return to the shuttlepod.

Once they had taken off, she addressed the captain.

"What will happen to me now?"

"We can arrange to rendezvous with a Vulcan transport ship, who will take you to Vulcan. From there, one of our ships will take you to Earth."

"Earth," she repeated. "I think I remember it but the memories… they feel quite elusive. I'm not sure whether they are actual memories or memories of what I read on your ship."

Trip and Malcolm glanced at each other.

"Athene," said Malcolm carefully. "Do you recall a planet called Rigel X?"

She looked at him blankly.

"I'm not sure," she said. "Should I?"

"Do you remember when we were on that automated repair station?" asked Trip.

Athene frowned.

"I think so… you and I, I mean Malcolm, went to find the central computer. I think we were transported to the bridge? I don't remember why we did that though!"

Malcolm didn't say anything but looked slightly more relaxed than he had done since Athene had come on board.

"What will happen to me on Earth?" she said, anxiously.

The captain smiled at her reassuringly.

"You'll eventually be given over to the civilian authorities, they will help you find a home and get you acclimatised to our planet. They will help you do whatever you want to do with the rest of your life. You'll meet new people, make friends I hope. Find a vocation."

"Hey, we'll look you up next time we're on Earth!" Trip interjected. "Show you some of the sights!"

"Perhaps I could show you some as well, Commander," she said, with a small smile.

Malcolm looked at the floor and appeared to be considering something.

"Athene, I would like you to meet my sister, Madeline. I'm sure that the two of you would get on well," he said. "Allow me to call her and explain."

Trip looked at the British man and smiled warmly.

"That's real good of you to do that." Then he looked worried. "You don't think your sister would be freaked out by this?"

"My sister is one of those people who bulldozes her way through life without a care in the world. Nothing fazes her. She was the only one in my family who was thrilled about my application to Starfleet. If anyone could cope with this revelation, it's Madeline."

"She sounds like my kind of girl," said Trip with a wink.

Jon managed to suppress a snigger at the look of innocence on Trip's face and the affronted look on Malcolm's.

"She's married," Malcolm said, rather pointedly. "To another woman."

Trip merely smiled.

"Guess I'm out of luck then," he said.

Malcolm merely shook his head, realising that Trip had been pulling his leg. Once the shuttlepod had been berthed and the launch bay repressurised, they exited and escorted Athene back to sickbay, where they left her with Phlox.

"It's been a long day, gentleman," said Jon. "I suggest we all go to bed and assuming we have no more contact from the aliens, we'll leave here in the morning."

"Yes, Captain."

"Sure, Cap'n."

* * *

There was no further contact with the aliens. _Enterprise_ left the Omega Cephei system, after confirming there was no trace of the theta radiation signature or the chambers they finished. Athene returned to her quarters, after being checked over by Phlox. The captain, after careful consideration, decided against assigning a guard to her, instead she agreed to wear a tracking bracelet so her whereabouts could be monitored at all times.

The _T'Henta_ would be meeting them in two days to pick up Athene and take her to Vulcan. Hoshi, with help from Travis, had compiled several PADDs of Earth literature and video entertainment to occupy her while she was on the Vulcan ship. At Athene's request, she also taught her a few phrases of Vulcan as well.

The night before she was due to leave, she was invited for dinner in the captain's mess, along with T'Pol, Trip and Malcolm. Chef served shepherd's pie with steamed carrots and peas, with mushroom ravioli for T'Pol, followed by pineapple sorbet.

The mood in the room was light and happy, even Malcolm was making an effort to engage with Athene. Trip and Jon were suggesting places she could visit on Earth, Malcolm had been discussing various career options with her and T'Pol merely observed the proceedings with interest, occasionally asking the odd clarifying question, always keen to expand her knowledge of Earth Humans.

When the dinner wrapped up, Trip offered to accompany Athene to the observation deck. When they got there, they both contemplated the stars in silence for a while, until Trip decided to speak.

"Athene," he said. "There's something I need to say to you."

She looked up him, her blue-grey gaze guarded.

"What about, Trip?" she said.

"Down on the planet," he said. "You kissed me…" He ran a hand through his hair while he tried to figure out what he wanted to say.

"It's fine, Trip," she said. "Nothing's going to happen between us." She paced the room nervously, absently rubbing her arm.

"I'm not convinced I was in control of my actions," she said quietly. "I suspect I was being manipulated by those who created me to act in a certain way."

Trip looked at her anxiously.

"You don't think they are still doing that, do you?"

She shook her head.

"No, I'm certain of it. They told me that I was now independent of them, free to live my life how I choose."

"There's a world of possibilities out there," said Trip. "You could get job, meet someone, start a family!"

She smiled sadly at him.

"Actually that last is the one thing I _can't_ do," she said. "Phlox did a pretty thorough examination of me and during the course of the exam he discovered that I am sterile. He suspects that was done deliberately. The nature of the problem is such that it cannot be treated."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Athene," he said sincerely.

"You shouldn't be. I don't think I even want children." She smiled at him.

"Malcolm and I talked earlier today," she continued. "It seems a lot of the memories of his life are starting to fade." She flashed a sardonic smile at Trip. "He seemed rather relieved at that."

The engineer let out a short laugh.

"I'll jus' bet! So what else did you talk about?"

"I'm not sure I should tell you," she said. "I can tell you that it has given me an idea of what I would like to do when I arrive on Earth."

* * *

It was time. The _T'Henta_ and _Enterprise_ met up precisely on schedule and docked. The captain, Trip and Malcolm saw Athene to the docking hatch. She had already said her goodbyes to the others and was ready to depart, laden down with a selection of PADDs that Hoshi and Malcolm had compiled to her.

"You'll write to us won't you?" asked Trip.

"Of course," she said. "And Malcolm, thank you. I look forward to meeting Madeline."

"Tell her I'll write soon," he said.

Athene smirked.

"Why change the habit of a lifetime?" she replied. Turning to Trip she continued. "I shall try and be a better correspondent than Malcolm but don't get your hopes up."

"I'll remind you," said Trip. "Maybe I'll remind Malcolm as well to write home more often."

He then swept her into a hug and kissed her cheek.

"Take care of yourself, won't you?" He released her and she put out her hand to the captain, who shook it firmly.

"Thank you, Captain," she said. "You have a fine ship and crew, and should be proud of them."

Jon looked at Malcolm and Trip, smiling fondly.

"I am," he said. "And please get in touch if there is anything I can do for you."

She turned to Malcolm.

"Goodbye, Malcolm," she said and held out her hand. He shook it, his blue-grey eyes meeting hers.

"Goodbye, Athene. Remember what I told you."

She nodded, picked up her bags and entered the docking hatch, where one of the Vulcan crew, a tall, stately female, was waiting for her.

The three men watched the docking hatch shut and the captain gave the orders to disengage. They then headed for the bridge.

"What did you tell her?" asked Trip as they made their way to the bridge.

"That despite our commonalities, she does not to have to follow the path I chose. I told her I envied her in a way. We all have paths we didn't travel in our lives, she now has the opportunity to take one that I didn't."

"Sounds like good advice," said Trip with a mischievous grin.

Malcolm merely shook his head, an unwilling smile tugging at his lips. Though later that day he thought of the other piece of advice he'd given her and hoped that she would take it.

* * *

_Six months later_

"I think everyone's here now," said Travis as he looked around the room. "Shall we roll?"

The captain nodded, looking around the crowded mess hall. He was sat at the front, with T'Pol, Hoshi and Malcolm. Travis took a seat alongside Trip and Phlox behind them.

The screen in the mess hall lit up to show a concert hall.

"The Royal Albert," sighed Malcolm contentedly. "It's been years since I was last there!"

In the crowded concert hall was a full orchestra and on the stage, a grand piano. The crowd in the hall applauded as a slender, female figure, her chocolate curls pinned at the side to cascade over her shoulders walked across the stage and gracefully sat herself at the piano, resting her elegant hands lightly on the keyboard. She was dressed in a simple, silver coloured shift dress that, as the camera zoomed on her face, they could see complimented her blue-grey eyes.

The mess hall was silent as intricate notes floated around the room. Travis had taken extra care with the sound system to ensure the highest possible quality, to maximise the enjoyment of the listeners in the guest hall as Mozart's Piano Concerto 27 was played by Athene and the orchestra.

Everyone listen, enraptured by the elegance of the music. When it came to an end, it seemed the whole room had let out a collective breath.

"That was wonderful, wasn't it?" said Hoshi, smiling. She turned to Malcolm. "Do you play?"

"I played to grade 8," said Malcolm. "Father insisted on his children learning a musical instrument. Madeline played cello. I quit when I went to University, I simply didn't have the time or opportunity, something I've always regretted." He smiled at Hoshi.

"When I was young I dreamed of being a concert pianist. However, as my career path had been laid pretty much since the day I'd been born, I knew it was merely a pipe dream."

"And now Athene is fulfilling it," she replied.

"She is," he agreed.

* * *

_On Earth, 7 months later_

"Athene Reed?"

Athene turned at the sound of her name.

"Yes?" she said, staring suspiciously at the non-descript, grey haired man who'd addressed her.

"I'd like you to come with me."  
"Why?" she said, stepping away slightly and tensing. "Do I know you?" Something nagged at the back of her mind; he seemed familiar somehow, perhaps a remnant of one of Malcolm's memories. It left her feeling uneasy and she mentally prepared herself for attack.

"You don't but I know you," said the man, his face set in stone, giving away nothing. "Lieutenant Reed certainly knows me."

A chill went down her spine as she remembered the last piece of advice Malcolm gave her.

_If a grey haired man dressed in black, who says he knows me approaches you, run and don't look back. Do NOT trust him._

"Harris," she whispered. She ran.

The grey haired man didn't pursue, merely watched her. It didn't matter; he knew where she lived. Obviously Reed had warned her of a possible approach but his warning would do no good. He suspected, having learnt from his experience of handling Reed, he would find recruiting the clone even easier.

* * *

_On _Enterprise_, eight months later._

Archer summoned Malcolm and Trip into his ready room, looking grave.

"Sit down gentleman," he said. Both men looked at the captain, anxiously.

"I'm afraid I've had some news from Earth," said the captain quietly. "It's about Athene. She went on a boating trip with your sister and her wife, Malcolm, along with some other mutual friends."

"Yes, Madeline did mention a possible boat trip in her last letter," said Malcolm nodding. "She told me Athene was taking some persuading." He shared a look with the captain. He was the only person to whom he had confided his aquaphobia.

"No one is sure what happened, but Athene went missing. They searched the boat thoroughly and found her life jacket in her room but no trace of her. It looks like she went overboard."

"Oh no!" said Trip, "Are they sure?"

"It's the only possible explanation," the captain said. "It happened during the night, so it was only when she failed to appear at breakfast they realised she was missing. The Royal Navy sent a rescue ship but despite extensive searches, no trace of her was found."

Malcolm swallowed hard.

"Do they… do they think it was suicide?" he asked.

"No, but apparently she and some of the others had had quite a bit to drink. The theory is she fell overboard while drunk. One of the night crew did remember seeing her on the deck, appearing to head back to her cabin after most of the drinkers had retired for the night. He was the last person to see her alive. He said she was very drunk. We're still awaiting a coroner's report but it's expected to be a verdict of accidental death."

"Thank you for telling us," said Malcolm. He and Trip got up and left when the captain dismissed them, after he agreed to make an announcement to the crew.

Trip touched his arm.

"You okay, Malcolm?" he said, looking at his friend in concern.

"I'm fine, Commander. Perhaps we could get together later and have a wake for her? I feel I owe her that at least."

"Yeah, sure. Let's bring Hoshi and Travis along as well."

Malcolm nodded and smiled.

"I think she would like that."

* * *

_On Earth eight months later._

"And here is our newest recruit," said Harris. "You will refer to her as Glaukopis."

* * *

**A/N So I *might* do a sequel. Not yet though, I haven't decided. Or maybe Glaukopis will turn up in one of my other stories. You never know...**

**From Wikipedia - 'In poetry from Homer, an oral tradition of the eighth or seventh century BC, onward, Athena's most common epithet is ****Glaukopis** (γλαυκῶπις), which usually is translated as, _bright-eyed_ or _with gleaming eyes_. The word is a combination of _glaukos_ (γλαυκός, meaning _gleaming_, _silvery_, and later, _bluish-green_ or _gray_) and _ops_ (ὤψ, _eye_, or sometimes, _face_).'


End file.
